Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Professional coffee breaker James Kendrick (http://tinyurl.com/26uvfu) posted thoughts about the touch interfaces of the upcoming Apple iPhone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone) and HTC Touch (http://www.htctouch.com/), and it reminded me that the iPhone, unlike most touch devices, is not pressure sensitive. It doesn't function like a normal touchscreen. Rather, it functions like a notebook trackpad.

So what difference does that make? Well, there should be no issue with slide control or multi-touch since they work fine on Macbooks. It also means bumping things in your pocket won't trigger it. But for the most part, we really don't know what difference this will make.

Will this make the device easier to use, more difficult, or just different? Since the OS was engineered to work with this interface, I would guess it would be easier, but perhaps users of standard touchscreen devices will find it odd. This will be an interesting aspect to watch, but I predict (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/06/my-iphone-predictions.html) it will be as easy to use as the iPod trackwheel.